


Fragmented Fragility

by demigodscum



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Blood, Gore, Whumptober 2018
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2018-10-03
Packaged: 2019-07-24 14:09:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16176668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demigodscum/pseuds/demigodscum
Summary: It's easier to break things than to put them back together.





	Fragmented Fragility

**Author's Note:**

> For day two of Whumptober: "bloody hands."
> 
> Can't believe this is the first thing I write for this fandom... doubtlessly inspired by all the 616 fics I've been reading.
> 
> Thank you so very much to the 616 Discord server people who cheered me on, especially Loran and Wynnesome for letting me steal their title and summary. Y'all rock.

He never forgets anything. His memory is perfect, he never forgets anything, he has a routine, he has a system for this.

Today, he forgets.

The streets rage around him and the air howls in his ear, but it all becomes background once he sees him again among the chaos.

He doesn’t let him get away this time. This is where it ends, this is when it all _stops_ , when they will finally, _finally_ , get to rest.

When he spots him back, he hesitates but seems to understand, even from a distance, that there is no escape, that there is no hiding from fulfilling their duty.

They meet in the middle, two storms crashing into each other, the poles of the Earth collapsing into one another and flattening the rest of the world between them.

They collide, and the whole world stops rotating.

They make noise, and the whole world quiets down.

There are no words, no sounds beyond the violent clanging of metal. They have nothing left to say, nothing that could change what is going to happen, what they have both agreed upon.

It lasts eons. They dance around each other, move back and forth to the rhythm of their mutual destruction, both of them working to prolong it, prolong the inevitable, prolong their destiny.

They tease, flirt with _too much_ , edge the line of _game over_. One of them takes a step forward, the other pushes them back three. One of them lands a hit, the other throws them against a damaged building.

They are incessant in the slow tearing apart of each other. _Always so irreverent_ , he thinks, and wants to smile at the predictability of him, wants to bask in the comfort of knowing how fruitless this all is. Wants to scream at him to stop wasting his time, but it’s alright—after this, they will rest. After this, this will be no more.

So he allows it to go on, allows him to pretend there is any possible outcome other than the one they have both seen.

His memory is perfect and he is patient, so he allows it to go on for a while.

He is patient but he _wants_ , so he allows it to go on until he _doesn’t_ , until he grabs onto a boot trying to fly up and _pulls_.

Until he smashes the suit down onto the ground, into the pavement.

Until he digs a hand into the upper edge of the chestplate where the shield made a dent and _tears_ it out with a screech.

He does it again, and again, and again. He rips the armor apart piece by piece, claws his way to the delicate flesh that hides underneath. He is merciless with the metal, discards the fragments of it for someone else to clean up later.

When he has the torso and arms uncovered, he pauses. Breathes in the acidity of destruction, tightens his knees around bared hips.

Places his fingers delicately between metal and neck, pushes up with utmost care.

Tears— _gently_ —the faceplate off the helmet, listens to the alloy wrench apart.

He looks down at Tony, at the small gash high on his forehead, at the trembling of his pink lips. He looks and he commits it to memory, this moment before the end of it all, before the final stretch of this road they have been walking down for too long.

He slams his fist down.

He does it again, and again, and again. He breaks the bones of Tony’s face, feels them shatter— _softly_ —under the force of his knuckles. The edges of what remains of the helmet dig into his cheekbones and jaw every time his head rocks sideways, slice the thin skin and the fragile veins and the weak muscle to grind against the sharper points of his cranium.

He beats him— _reverently_ —into a mess, into a pulp that runs over his hands. He molds Tony into a misshapen symbol of themselves, of the promises they made and the vows they broke and the _end_ that they both knew had to come.

He ruins Tony the way Tony ruined them, lovingly _, traitorously_.

He whispers a last goodbye against the carnage that was his mouth, murmurs _we’re free_ and runs his hands— _gently_ —over the muddle of torn up flesh.

The sleeves of his suit where they reach his wrists are tainted dark purple. Most of the skin below that is covered in red, in tiny flecks of Tony that cling to him and hide under his nails. Red, _red_ , darker than the shade in either of their suits, darker than the haze that swims around his vision.

The blood warms him, covers him in a blanket of safety and peace, of relief, of _it’s over, it’s over, we finally did it_. When he gathers the ripped faceplate off the ground, his hands leave streaks across the gold, and two of his fingers slip into the eye slits to cradle it close to the star on his chest.

He leaves the shield behind because _it’s over,_ they made it _, we never have to do this again_.

Nobody stops him. They see the red on his hands, see the blood that covers his fingers like the gloves that come with his uniform, and they let him go.

Today, he forgot.

Or so he tells himself.


End file.
